Dronecode Foundation announces new board of directors

Three new directors, representing the wider PX4 community, have been elected to the Dronecode Foundation’s board of directors. That board, says a news release, “will guide the Foundation as it executes its mission to enable widespread adoption and accelerate the development of open standards.”

Before we get into the details, it’s worth explaining what the Dronecode Foundation is and does. This comes directly from its news release: “The Dronecode Foundation, a Linux Foundation project, promotes innovation through open source and open standards in the drone industry. It fosters collaboration to enable widespread adoption of open source technologies and helps accelerate the development of the PX4 Autopilot and the surrounding open source projects.”

The foundation is vendor-neutral, and devoted to the world of Open Source drone projects.

Let’s get to the release

Rather than simply rewrite the news release, we paste it in its entirety, unfiltered:

Newly elected to serve on the board is Paul Stubbs, who will represent the Gold members. Paul is currently a director of AI & innovation marketing for the Microsoft Business AI team, focusing on autonomous systems such as vehicles, drones, industrial robotics, and simulators, including working with the Microsoft AirSim team. Paul has been active in the community since Microsoft joined as a Gold member in 2019. He said:

I am honored to be appointed to the board of the Dronecode Foundation. We are at an exciting inflection point in the history of flight, and the Dronecode Foundation is changing how the world codes, trains, simulates, certifies, and flies both piloted and autonomous drones.

Chad Sweet and Hyon Lim are the Silver member representatives on the board, bringing their years of experience in the field of robotics to the board of directors. Chad Sweet is the cofounder and CEO of ModalAIⓇ, a Blue UAS Framework manufacturer of American-made, autonomous autopilots for drones and ground robots. Sweet is highly experienced in robotics R&D, and during his 20 years at Qualcomm, led efforts in computer vision and wireless communications with 15 patents granted. He was responsible for groundbreaking projects such as the Snapdragon Flight, which is currently en route to Mars via NASA’s Ingenuity. Sweet is committed to advancing the US drone industry by providing innovators with ModalAI’s open robot and drone perception and communications systems manufactured in the US.

Over the past year the drone industry has experienced a productivity transformation and I believe that open-source is the catalyst to further industry growth and integration. I am excited to join the Dronecode Foundation Board of Directors and look forward to working with the Dronecode Foundation team and fellow board members to keep up the momentum and propel the US drone industry forward with open-standards and open-source.

Chad Sweet, CEO and cofounder, ModalAI

Hyon Lim is the CEO and cofounder of UVify, a manufacturer of drones for Fortune 500 companies, universities, research labs, and more. Hyon has been an active researcher in autonomous systems and his published computer vision and drone-related papers have been cited more than 1,110 times to date. Hyon also has been active in the community and has contributed to PX4 since 2012, which was around the start of the industry.

I am pleased with the opportunity to join the Dronecode Foundation’s Board of Directors at such a challenging and exciting time. I am deeply passionate about our industry, and the importance of the role in setting standards in the drone industry. I am excited to work with my fellow board members to further expand the Dronecode Foundation and ensure that we set standards that benefit the Foundation and its members.

Hyon Lim, CEO and cofounder, UVify

The 2021 board of directors

The Dronecode Foundation board sets the business direction as well as oversees IP management, marketing, and events on behalf of the organization, and is formed by:

• Lorenz Meier, chairman of the board – cofounder and CEO, Auterion
• Kevin Sartori, Platinum board member – cofounder, Auterion
• Paul Stubbs, Gold board member – director AI marketing, Autonomous Systems, Microsoft
• Chad Sweet, Silver board member – cofounder and CEO, ModalAI
• Hyon Lim, Silver board member – cofounder and CEO, UVify

Senior members of the board of directors welcome the newly appointed directors.

As the drone industry keeps growing, the collaboration among industry players becomes increasingly important to ensure the development technology that is both safe and scalable. I’m excited to work with the newly appointed board directors on serving the open source community and enabling the industry with open standards for new autopilots, smart batteries, cameras, and integrations of services. In 2021 an open approach beats closed ones.

Kevin Sartori, cofounder, Auterion

Building a healthy ecosystem

Since its inception in 2014, the Dronecode Foundation has been at the forefront of innovation, enabling the collaboration between developers, companies, and supporting organizations.

The Dronecode Foundation has set with PX4, MAVLink, and Pixhawk the standards over the last decade in the drone industry. As drones find increased adoption in enterprise applications, standards, integrations into industry-leading drones and enterprise software and our permissive open source license are key factors for adoption.

Lorenz Meier, chairman of Dronecode, cofounder and CEO of Auterion

The Dronecode Foundation is thrilled to welcome the new appointed directors. Their terms are set to begin immediately and run through January 2022. We hope you will join us in welcoming the new directors.